


It Could Work

by paperpenpal



Series: Together, As A Promise [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Mentioned Glenn Fraldarius, No Beta, No war, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Romance, This is less of a story and more of a scene collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21787588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperpenpal/pseuds/paperpenpal
Summary: “You know,” Sylvain muses, “This would all be a lot easier if we just got married.”She barely manages to avoid knocking her head against the wall from how quickly she whips her head to stare down at him, “Excuse me?”The grin on his face is boyish again, playful, “You heard me.”“Yes, I did in fact hear you but I’d like for you to repeat it on the account of the fact that I cannot believe you said it.”
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: Together, As A Promise [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1588891
Comments: 37
Kudos: 302





	It Could Work

**Author's Note:**

> I had a bunch of scenes I wanted to write for my other fic “The Art of Courting” that didn’t quite fit into what that fic became so I basically just wanted to integrate some of those scenes here (and, well, rewrote one of those scenes into this story) but then it accidentally became a-sort-of Ingrid character study. Whoops!
> 
> (I promise the next thing I do won’t have anything to do with arranged marriages.)

Ingrid doesn’t like to complain. In her opinion, it is neither a useful practice nor a particularly productive outlet. She would much rather spend that energy in the training grounds, slashing through dummy after dummy (she refuses to train with actual people when she’s angry, no matter how many times Felix asks her to) or in the library furiously scribbling notes for the next examination.

Ingrid likes to focus. She likes to turn all the negative energy into productive energy because then at least she gets something out of it.

Today though, she feels like complaining. It’s been a long day and, to her infinite embarrassment, the professor and her classmates had to help her deal with the very personal matter of a particularly unsavory suitor chasing after her hand. She is honestly grateful. Dorothea might have saved her from a lifetime of misery, or at the very least, a fight with her father. It’s just that the whole mess makes her want to scream.

Not that her father would actively force her into a marriage with someone abhorrent. Of course not, but he would just ask too many questions and she’s not looking forward to the day she runs out of good answers.

Thankfully, this situation was a pretty cut and dry. The man was awful but also thankfully reckless enough to leave a paper trail of the blood money he slings around so she knows that with a quick letter, her father would understand. She just dreads the thought of writing it, dreads the thought of dealing with a response that’ll likely include a new name with a similar ordeal. She has rejected too many men at this point that there are few left to choose from. The whole thing leaves a sour taste in her mouth.

So Ingrid, despite not being one to put things off, decides to save this headache for tomorrow. Perhaps the sting will ease by then and her words would come out a little less bitter.

A knock from the door stirs her from her thoughts. She can hear Sylvain’s muffled voice from behind it. Normally, she would get up from where she’s lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling but today she simply calls to him to come in.

“Hey!” he greets with a small wave as the door swings open, a boyish grin on his face. He leans on her doorframe, arms crossed, casual and comfortable. “Just wanted to check in.”

He knows very well what happened today and is likely to know how she feels about it. They have known each other for too long for him not to have helped her. She would do the same for him if the need ever arises. She hopes it never does.

“Hey,” she responds, trying her best to leave the frustration out of her voice. She knows by the way he frowns for a fraction of a second that she does not do a good job of it.

He steps into the room, shutting the door gently behind him, and his smile shifts from boyish to kind.

“You okay?” he asks. His voice is softer, almost tender. “You never lock yourself in your room.”

It’s not true and they both know it. She has absolutely locked herself in her room before but that was a long time ago and the reason for it isn’t something either of them want to bring up.

“It wasn’t locked,” she can only say, in hopes that he can understand.

“You know what I mean,” he almost scolds, pulling her desk chair over to straddle it by her bedside. He’s worried, she knows, and she feels bad about her attitude.

“I’m fine Sylvain,” she tells him, sitting up. She tucks her knees under her chin. “Really, just a little frustrated.”

“I think you’re allowed to be more than a little frustrated.”

She heaves a great sigh. She seems to do that a lot around Sylvain, although typically, it’s done about him, prefacing some sort of lecture or dressing down. This time, however, the sigh is for her. Normally, Ingrid doesn’t like to pity her own circumstances. It makes her feel weak- pathetic even, and there are truly worse things in the world than to be wanted. It’s just that nearly being kidnapped has cause for some bitterness. This much she’d allow herself, but only this.

“I’d rather not,” she ends up saying, sadly, softly. “It’s not worth the energy.”

This is exactly the wrong thing to say because Sylvain rockets out of his chair with so much ferocity that it nearly tips over and she thinks for a fraction of a second that he might throw it at something. “Not worth the-!” His voice is loud in the small room, she is sure that anyone passing by in the hallway would be able to hear it clear as day, “Of course you’re worth the energy Ingrid!”

It surprises her, the intensity of the gaze he sets upon her. There is so much anger there that she doesn’t quite know what to say or how to react. She is angry too, even when she tries not to show it, but she is also too tired to want to be. There’s little worth in being angry at a reality you cannot change. Sylvain knows this. He knows it the same way she does, although perhaps with a slight less urgency.

Still, she can’t help but be touched at the fact that he is angry for her, even when he does not often allow himself to be angry for himself. Normally, she would call him out on his hypocrisy, today, she finds it almost sweet.

“Sylvain.” Her voice is firm, a warning. “Please don’t shout.”

The tension in his shoulders relaxes but his grip on the back of her desk chair tightens, his knuckles are approaching white. His jaw is tight.

For a moment, they stare each other down-waiting. It is a game that he often loses. He may be stubborn but he tends to break first. She has spent a decade mastering her disapproving glare and he often withers at it, never mind the part where she is likely to re-lecture him about something or other when he does something stupid again. Sometimes she wonders if he will ever listen to her for longer than a week. Sometimes she wonders if she will ever stop trailing after him. She knows she will never stop caring for him at least.

Eventually, he breathes out a slow steady breath in time with the way he finally loosens the grip on her chair and uses the hand to brush through his hair

“Sorry,” he says when he settles. He is still standing although he seems much calmer. The tight knot in Ingrid’s stomach that she hadn’t been aware of uncoils and she calms with him. She gestures for him to sit back down and he obliges.

“It’s okay.” When his face darkens a bit, she adds. “I’m okay.”

“I know you are,” he finally says, and then in voice quiet and more to himself. “Sometimes it’s okay not to be though.”

“What’s that going to do?” she asks, but she’s really thinking, _what else is there to do other than be okay?_

She thinks he hears it anyway, even when she doesn’t say it because his gaze softens again, although he has no answer for her.

She knows what he does. He flirts and dates and ruins (his reputation, the women he dates, himself.) Sylvain hates behind his smile, even when he does not say it aloud and never would to her or to Felix or to Dimitri. She knows this because she knows him, even when he tries to hide it from them.

It is, perhaps, the worst kept secret among them. Aside from the fact that Felix deeply cares underneath the rough skin of his grief and the quiet rage that Dimitri suppresses in every kind action he takes.

She wonders, briefly, what secret they pretend not to know about her, if she keeps any at all.

“Well,” Sylvain says, leaning back, stretching his arms on the back of the desk chair. There is a forced playfulness in his demeanor that he puts on as if he’s trying to lighten the mood. As if he’s trying to rectify a mistake he had no intention of making. “If you throw a big enough tantrum, maybe the Count will back up a bit. Plus, it’d be a delight to see.”

Ingrid rolls her eyes. She can feel a smile threaten against her mouth but she clamps it down, feigns an offense she doesn’t quite feel. “I’m not five.”

“But it would be glorious. I can just imagine it. You marching right up to him, hair whipping behind you, glaring him down - yeah like the one you have on now- shout about your honor and dignity and ooh, maybe you could even slap-“

“I am not slapping my father!” She throws a pillow that he catches before it hits his face. “I might slap _you_ though!”

“I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time” he chuckles, rubbing his face from a ghost of an imprint from a time she cannot recall. “But if you did slap your father it’d probably-“

“I am not slapping my father!” she repeats again, indignant. The idea is so absurd that it nearly makes her laugh but she does a valiant job of maintaining her outrage. “Why in the name of Seiros would I _ever_ slap my father?”

“I mean,” Sylvain starts but he doesn’t get a chance to finish before Ingrid huffs.

“Today wasn’t his fault.” At his disbelieving look she continues, “all my father really did was pass on a message.”

“He could have done a little more research Ingrid. Could have at least looked into the guy before he sent you a letter urging you to consider.”

“He didn’t urge me to do anything.” She defends fiercely, the mock rage that she had felt a second ago rapidly evolving into a real one. “And the man was smart, he was very good at hiding it. If it wasn’t for Dorothea, we might have never known.”

“And then what?” Sylvain’s voice blazing again, matching hers, although he does not rise from his chair this time. “You actually marry him?”

“There’s no point in talking about what might have happened,” she dismisses. She turns her whole body so that she’s facing him fully, her feet on the floorboards between them. “The important thing is that it didn’t.”

“But what if it happens again? What if the next guy is just as bad? Goddess Ingrid, what if he’s worse?”

“It won’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’m going to have a conversation with my father and ensure that it doesn’t,” she tells him, “And at no point in that conversation will a slap be involved.”

There’s a beat of silence between them as Sylvain processes her words before he chuckles, and with that simple act, the tension between them breaks and the air defuses again. Sylvain’s worry is still evident in his body language, what with the way his hands are clenched into fists, but at least he’s smiling now. At least he will not push it much farther.

“Okay fine,” he concedes, “fine. But if it does happen again-“

“It won’t-“

“Okay, but if it does - you know I’m here for you Ingrid.”

“I know,” she says, and then, “thank you.”

Sylvain nods and they fall into a soft and easy silence. Ingrid tucks a knee back under her chin and closes her eyes. She feels, still, unbelievably tired but somehow much better than before. She isn’t able to pinpoint why considering the semi-heated exchange that occurred between them but she finds that it doesn’t matter. His presence is comforting in this moment and that is enough.

—

Sometime later, Ingrid finds herself crammed in the corner of her bed, leaning against the wall. At some point, Sylvain had managed to migrate next to her and now lays sprawled out on her bedspread, hands tucked behind his head, looking much too comfortable and taking up way too much space.

“You know,” Sylvain muses, “this would all be a lot easier if we just got married.”

She barely manages to avoid knocking her head against the wall from how quickly she whips her head to stare down at him. “ _Excuse me?_ ”

The grin on his face is boyish again, playful. “You heard me.”

“Yes, I did in fact hear you but I’d like for you to repeat it on the account of the fact that I cannot believe you said it.”

“What?” He asks feigning innocence, shifting so that he can lean on his elbows, pushing down against her mattress so that he can be closer to eye level with her. “It’s a good idea!”

“It’s an idea alright.”

Although she has to admit that the thought has crossed her mind once or twice, but only briefly, and only to be quickly dismissed. She would never tell him that though. He would never let her live it down.

“I mean it Ingrid,” he tells her and she’s surprised enough by his tone that allows herself another brief consideration. It’s soft and kind again, nearing something too close to sincerity for her liking if not for the impish smile still plastered on his face. “It could work. You know it could work.”

She does know. She knows very well the benefits that marrying Sylvain would bring her and her house. She knows that her father would be ecstatic. She knows that it would be easy to marry Sylvain because they’ve known each other for so long and she wouldn’t have to learn to care for him. She also knows exactly how he feels about marriage and crests and the nobility.

“That wouldn’t be fair to you,” she decides to say.

“No, what isn’t fair is the both of us getting married off to someone we don’t know and that we don’t care about.” He sits up fully, turns to look at her, and says without stutter or hesitation, “I care about you Ingrid.”

It is something she already knows although it is the first time he has said it so overtly. It warms her in a way that nothing else ever has. There’s a look in his eyes that’s almost pleading, as if he desperately wants her to believe him when she already does. It is a look that makes her breath catch.

“I care about you too Sylvain,” she says because she feels she needs to but also because it’s true. It comes out a little breathless and it almost feels inadequate somehow, like there’s more to be said but she doesn’t know why.

“So...”

“It could work,” she admits.

—

Ingrid ends up flying to her father in Galatea the next day. The conversation, as it turns out, is relatively painless. She need only to hand over the evidence she and Dorothea had gathered before her father ripped the proposal letter to shreds and shoved a hero’s relic into her hands.

She ends up spending a relatively pleasant day at home with very little talk of marriage between them. It is a nice change of pace from the last dozen or so conversations she’s had with her father. She knows it’s likely because he feels bad but it reassures and reminds her that her father means well and only wants what’s best for her. She cannot blame him for that.

He is only a man doing what he can for the people he loves.

She has always taken after him.

—

It doesn’t last long. She knew that her father’s next letter would come with another name attached to it but she never ever expected this one.

Ingrid finds Sylvain in the training yard, talking at Felix as their friend grunts through annoyed replies in the middle of his training routine.

“Sylvain!” she calls from across the yard.

Sylvain’s midway through a sentence when his gaze snaps to hers. The lazy smile and wave he gives her sends a surge of annoyance coursing through her and she can’t quite help the way her feet stomp as she approaches.

“Can I have a word?” she asks, trying to stay polite, to offshoot some of the childishness of her storming over but anyone could tell by her tone that it wasn’t so much a question as it was a demand.

Sylvain nods and half-jogs over to close the remaining space between them. Behind him, Felix shoots her a relieved look. She’d laugh if she wasn’t so agitated. “What’s going on Ingrid?”

She looks around, eyes darting to survey the grounds even though she already knows that there’s no one else around except for Felix who seems entirely focused on his training dummy. Still, Ingrid lowers her voice.

“Did you tell our fathers we’re engaged?”

Felix lets out a particularly loud grunt.

She feels her face flush and refuses to look at anything except for Sylvain’s shirtsleeve as she tugs on it, pulling Sylvain further aside, farther from Felix and his slashing.

“Well, not exactly,” he says when they stop, and she makes the mistake of glancing up at his face. He is eyeing her, studying her expression a little too intently, as if he’s sizing up how much trouble he’s in, “but I might have mentioned something to my father about the possibility of-” 

“The possibl-Sylvain!” she whisper-yells. “Do you know what you’ve done?!”

“Yes?” he starts. “But I’m starting to get the feeling that we’re on two different pages.”

“Two different-Sylvain! You can’t just-! When you say something like-” she splutters, gesturing wildly. “It’ll be pretty difficult to take this back Sylvain. If our fathers told any-“

“Woah, woah, woah.” His voice is too calm and almost amused when he reaches out for her, each one of his hands catching her wrists. “Ingrid, calm down!”

“How can I be calm?!” Her tone is still frantic but she does not shake him off, although she does consider it. “How can you be calm?”

“Because all I did was mention it to my father,” he tells her. “Ingrid, I would never force you to do anything you don’t want to do. I just thought...well after our conversation, I guess I thought I’d throw my name in the hat.”

He says it so casually that it actually gives her a moment of pause. There’s a thousand things she was going to yell at him for that all just crumble away right before they have a chance to reach her lips. The expression on his face is all too light, the grip on her wrists warm and stable, and she finds herself deflating despite herself.

“Only you can be so cavalier about a proposal,” she ends up groaning, breaking one of her hands away from his to massage the bridge of her nose. “You know it’s going to be very difficult to take this back right?”

Sylvain’s expression morphs into something she can’t quite read. Somewhere between genuinely puzzled, slightly bemused, and maybe even moderately offended. “Who said anything about taking it back?”

Ingrid freezes. The wrist he’s still holding feels suddenly very very hot and it spreads to the rest of her body. The agitation in her chest calms but the beating in her heart reaches her ears. She can only manage a slightly breathless “What?”

“Who said anything about taking it back?” he repeats, as if she simply didn’t hear him.

“I-“ It is not often that Ingrid is rendered speechless. It is less often that it is Sylvain who does it.

“Ingrid,” he says, taking a step closer, her name is almost a whisper on his lips, soft and quiet. The training grounds itself seem to still. Something shifts, and perhaps that something is buried in his tone because it’s what pulls her eyes towards his as he asks, “have you considered the fact that I’m doing this because I want to?”

Her pulse drums under her skin at a rapid pace. She’s sure that Sylvain can feel it with his thumb on her wrist. There’s a softness in his expression that she has only ever seen him wear once, when she was much younger and much more devastated, but it’s also different in a way she cannot quantify.

A loud crack breaks the moment between them and Ingrid jumps back. She ignores the way her hands burn from feeling Sylvain’s slip through her fingers. Felix has somehow managed to dig his training sword so deep into a wooden dummy that he is now having trouble dislodging it.

She is relieved for the distraction.

Sylvain looks away towards Felix. Ingrid can no longer see his face. She is relieved at this too. It was becoming difficult to look at him look at her.

He jogs over, makes a joke about the situation she does not catch, and the boys fall into a banter she does not hear.

She leaves instead. Sylvain’s question still ringing in her ears.

—

Ingrid refuses to make things weird. Yes, she is pacing in her room, which she never does. Yes, she had fled, which she does even less, but she refuses to make this weird. She will talk to him later when she has gathered her thoughts and it will not be weird.

Sylvain’s expression comes to mind. He is handsome, this she has always known, and his carefully cultivated charm is something she has watched him perfect over the years, but he is only ever genuine to a very select few and even then sparingly. Even then, he hides it.

He did not choose to hide it with her today. He was not being particularly charming or flirty. He was honest. And somehow that is what terrifies her.

She ran away from him, she realizes, stilling in her dorm room, ran away when he allowed himself to be vulnerable.

 _I’m awful,_ she thinks and it is this that makes her move, makes her knock on his door without a second thought.

He pulls it open and beams when he sees her.

“I’m sorry,” she says, before he gets a chance to greet her, and his brow furrows with confusion first before his face falls.

“Oh.” There’s something in his voice makes him that makes him seem very far away, even when he stands right in front of her. His gaze drops to the floor, to the threshold of the door between them and Ingrid wishes suddenly that she could cross it. That she could reach out towards him but it does not seem appropriate considering the fact that she was the one who hurt him in the first place so she stays instead and waits.

“Well, it’s okay.” He half-mumbles, shrugging. “I figured it was a long shot anyway.”

Ingrid blinks, the guilt she was feeling a moment before subsides, giving way to confusion. “What?”

“I mean, rejection sucks,” he looks back up at her, “but I’ll get over it.”

“Wait-no,” she says, shaking her head. “That’s not what I’m apologizing for.”

“Then it’s a yes?”

He gives her a grin that looks almost a bit hopeful and the immediate instinct to deny dies on her lips.

He seems so earnest in this moment and Ingrid is not sure what to do with it. She is used to banter and repartee. Not whatever this is.

“If I say yes,” she finds herself saying, “it’ll set a lot of things in motion that will be really difficult to stop or change. It means that you’ll be promised to me.”

“I think that’s kind of the point.”

Ingrid sighs, it is not usually in her nature to be so indirect. “You’ll be promised to me and only me Sylvain.”

She almost expects Sylvain to deflate, to backtrack and take it back, to make a joke but instead, his smile actually widens. Her half prepared response falls away when his soft voice says, “I know Ingrid.”

The tension and anxiety balled up in her shifts into something else. Something light and fluttery that isn’t altogether unpleasant. Something that is both very quiet and intimate and somehow also big and broad, stretching far into a once formless future that’s beginning to build in her mind’s eye, solidifying into a path with Sylvain at her side.

“So,” he breathes, offering a hand to her, palm up and open. “What do you say?”

Something in his eyes reflects what she feels so Ingrid takes it, clasps it softly in hers, and watches as their fingers fold around each other.

“Okay,” she says, letting him pull her into his room. “Okay.”

—

It is strange how nothing changes and yet everything does. Sylvain doesn’t exactly stop being charming. He’s still handsome and he still drops lines whenever he sees an opening but he does stop chasing. He doesn’t go on any dates and nearly half his lines are followed with something about her.

For her part, she lets him. She stops scolding him about his flirting unless he says something particularly embarrassing or outrageous, and even then, she mostly just swats him or glares. He often teases her about jealousy and she often swats him harder.

She’s finding, to her surprise, that he’s not entirely wrong, that something about their arrangement has altered the way the flirting affects her. Before, it had been frustrating, but now it feels different, like a bubbling under her skin that she can’t put a finger on. It’s still annoying but she’s also finding that she’s not as offended as everyone thinks she ought to be. She trusts him, she always has, but there’s also something about the way he floats next to her now, an arm on her shoulder, a hand on her knee, that reassures her. He has always been around. They have known each other for so long that she’s used to the way he moves in and out of her space but there’s also something inherently different about it now that she doesn’t have the words for yet.

She can’t say she dislikes it. In fact, sometimes, embarrassingly, she finds that she misses the contact when they’ve been away from each other for too long. Sometimes, when she’s feeling brave, she’s the one that reaches out.

Mostly though, it is easy to forget that they’re engaged. It’s easy to push it into the back of her mind as they would not be wed until after they graduate from the academy and their families have agreed to deal with the majority of the arrangements until then.

Mostly, it feels like a huge weight is off her shoulders and it allows her to dive whole-heartedly into her studies. Sylvain has made it very clear that he wants her to follow her dreams and for the first time in her life, she feels like she can truly entertain the thought of doing both her duty to her family and her duty to herself.

It is better than she’s ever hoped and she finds herself open to the possibility that she could regard this arrangement as something more than a convenience.

—

There’s a firm rapt on her door that has her look up from her lecture notes. In truth, she is grateful for the distraction. She’s been rereading the same words over and over again to the point where everything’s been blended in a foggy haze that tells her that she’s most definitely going to have to review the last few pages again later.

“Come in,” she calls, scooting her chair back, stretching her arms behind her head. Something pulls at her neck and she winces.

The door opens, a mess of red hair and a vibrant grin greets her.

“Catch!” he says without a greeting, throwing something small, glinting, and gold hurling across the room towards her.

Despite the way her arms are still pulled back into a stretch, Ingrid’s reflexes are good, well-honed from her days in the training grounds, and she snatches it out of the air. “Sylvain, what the hell?” she starts, a lecture already on her tongue, but halts abruptly when she looks down at the ring in her hand.

It is heavy and dense and mostly simple except for the detailed engraving of the Crest of Gautier on one of its sides. It’s a wedding band.

“You know you’re not supposed to give me this right?” she says, staring at it, trying to keep her tone nonchalant.

“It’s yours,” he says, there’s something mischievous in his expression that she chooses to ignore.

“Not yet it isn’t.”

Ingrid considers tossing it back but knowing him, he’d just let it drop, only for it to roll underneath the floorboards, lost forever to the monastery walls. She refuses to be responsible for that.

“What does it matter?” he says breezily, entering the room, he comes to lean against the desk next to her. “It’ll be yours eventually.”

Ingrid bites her lip. Something in her memory stirs and stings. She doesn’t know how to tell Sylvain of the things that might not come to pass. She does not want to entertain the thought of losing someone else. And she cannot entertain the thought of losing him. A deep sadness that has lived within her for so long reawakens and to her horror, she can feel the beginnings of tears prickle at the corner of her eyes.

Sylvain, of course, catches it. “Shit! Ingrid,” he curses, straightening up, “I didn’t-“

“No, it’s okay,” she says. She doesn’t want to go down this road again. She doesn’t want to talk about it. Not with her door still wide open for anyone to walk by or through.

Sylvain sighs. “It’s not,” He says firmly. “It was insensitive of me. I’m sorry.”

“No, really Sylvain, it’s okay.” She stands, willing herself not to cry and takes his hand in hers to pass the ring between. “But I can’t accept this.”

He concedes, nodding, and tucks it into his pocket. She doesn’t look at him when he does. “Then I’ll hold onto it until you can,” she hears.

Ingrid smiles, despite the lump in her throat, and swipes very quickly at the corner of her eyes just in case. “Come on,” She says, tugging his elbow. Her room feels too small all of a sudden and much too stuffy. “I’m hungry, let’s go find something to eat.”

“You’re always hungry,” he teases.

She swats him on the elbow and pulls him towards the door, letting her hand slide down to grab at his wrist but he slips it further down, brings her hand to his lips with his and lays a gentle kiss against her ring finger.

The act sends a pulse through her entire body and almost makes her lose her footing, but she manages to turns around, unable to do anything other than give Sylvain a questioning glance.

She expects to see a charming smile or a mischievous grin but instead the look on the look on his face can only be described as fond and he smiles as he explains slightly sheepishly, face with a light dusting of red, “It just felt like the right thing to do.”

The sadness settled in her chest doesn’t go away but it feels easier to carry and it ebbs away further into the background as Sylvain steps beside her, her hand in his.

—

Sylvain hovers nearby on the training grounds, thumbing through a book he is clearly not paying much attention to, as she runs through sword drills with Felix, doing her best to ignore the way his eyes will more-than-occasionally drift over to them. She tries to keep her back to him, not happy with the way it distracts her.

She’s usually quite good at keeping focus when training or studying but something’s been different about Sylvain ever since he tried to give her the wedding band and the anxiety that surrounds it is quickly growing into agitation.

“Don’t extend your elbow so far,” Felix says, he places a firm grip on her arm and adjusts her position.

The stance instantly feels better and more comfortable once he does. He takes a small step back to examine her form before he signals for her to continue.

She has never been particularly bad at sword fighting but she has always favored the lance. It has been her chosen weapon ever since her crest manifested in her and a duty was thrust upon her. Still, that does not mean that she neglects other areas of combat. It is why she has asked Felix to help her.

“Your feet are too far apart,” he tells her a second later, crossing his arms. “You’re usually not this sloppy.”

Ingrid exhales deeply, clearly frustrated. “Sorry,” She says, disappointed in herself. She almost makes an excuse, almost says she’s just tired but she hates excuses. She wants to be a knight. She doesn’t have the luxury for excuses.

She’s honestly surprised that Felix hasn’t scolded her for wasting his time, given his usual level of patience.

“You could tell him to leave,” Felix says.

She can’t help the way her head looks back towards Sylvain, who is, for once, actually reading the book in his hands.

“No,” she says, shaking her head, although she knows that Felix can hear the frustration in her tone. “I should be able to focus more.”

“Yes,” Felix says curtly.

Ingrid frowns, resetting her position, expecting the conversation to end there, but Felix continues.

“Did something happen?”

She mulls the question over. It is unusual for Felix to pry. He listens, even when he grumbles about it, but he does not usually ask questions. Instead, he tends to wait until someone volunteers the answers and he is not often bothered if they never decide to.

“No,” she ends up saying. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Not anything that hasn’t already been resolved.”

Felix raises an eyebrow but says nothing more. Ingrid drops out of her stance and frowns, feeling very much like she’s being judged.

She’s not quite sure what to say. She and Felix don’t often talk about things like this. He is one of her dearest friends but they never talk about anything too personal. There’s too much risk there, too much history, and while she is ready to broach the chasm between them, he is not.

And this thing with Sylvain is too tangled. She doesn’t want to say something and accidentally set Felix off, especially since it doesn’t really have anything to do with him in the first place.

Felix’s shoulders relax a little, he drops the accusation from his face and instead gestures vaguely in the direction of Sylvain, “He’s been glaring at me all day,” he says almost offhandedly, steering the conversation in a slightly different direction.

“No, he hasn’t,” she says automatically, frowning a little.

“How would you know?” Felix says although he doesn’t look as annoyed as he sounds. “You’ve been too focused on not looking at him to notice.”

She can’t even deny it.

“If he’s been glaring at you, maybe you should be the one asking him to leave,” she tries. “Did something happen between you two?”

“I’m not distracted by it,” he dismisses. “And no, for the record. He’s probably just jealous.”

“What’s there to be jealous of?” she asks, genuinely puzzled. It’s only Felix after all.

“No idea,” Felix shrugs, “but he talks about it all the time. It’s annoying.”

“He talks about being jealous?”

“No,” Felix says. “He talks about you.”

Ingrid bites her lip and attempts to fight the flush creeping up her neck. She doesn’t know how she feels about the two of them talking about her. She doesn’t know if it’s wise to think about it too much so she readies her stance again.

Felix seems to understand and returns to examining her positioning but not before leaving her with one last word. “Congratulations by the way,” he tells her before she starts her next drill, “Didn’t get to say it earlier.”

—

Felix’s congratulations stays with her long after they finish training. She hadn’t realized how important it was for her to hear it until he said it. A part of her heart had been protecting itself from the possibility of Felix’s disapproval and she hadn’t recognized it until Felix spoke to her.

She had been afraid, without realizing it, that Felix’s disapproval would destroy her. Because, perhaps some ugly irrational secret part of her equated Felix’s potential disapproval to Glenn’s, never mind the fact that the two were very different people, never mind the fact that one of them is dead.

The unintentional and unrecognized guilt, grief, and fear lifts from her body and the private tears she cries in the comfort of her room is both cathartic and necessary.

A part of her will always love Glenn but the last part of her holding onto him loosens, freeing the rest of her heart.

—

Later, after the sun has set and everyone has retired to bed, she finds herself knocking on Sylvain’s door. When he calls for her to come in, she does not hesitate to close the door behind her and cross the room.

He is lying on his bed eyes half-focused on the book he had been kind of reading while they were at the training grounds. She notices that he’s gone backwards by about a quarter, likely starting over because he could not follow the text with his lack of focus.

“Hey,” she greets as he shifts on the bed to make room for her. She obliges and sits on the edge, the gap between them small and itching to be closed. “What are you reading?”

“Something Annette gave me,” he says, bookmarking the page before he leans over to place the book on the end table next to his bed.

She glances over at the cover and looks at him surprised. “Magic? Really?”

“Hey, don’t look so surprised.” He grins. “I can cast a spell here and there.” 

“Well, I know that,” she tells him. “I just didn’t know you wanted to study it.”

“I don’t.” He shrugs. “Well, not really, but I promised Annette I’d be competition and she’s getting really good so...”

She reaches over to brush the bangs out of his eyes as she teases, “how come you don’t apply yourself when I ask you to?”

“You don’t really ask Ingrid.” He laughs leaning into her touch.

She pretends to be offended, “I ask!” she says, pulling her hand away.

He reaches for it with his and entwines their fingers together. “No,” he says fondly. “You demand.”

“And you ignore.”

“Yep. Sounds like me.”

He tugs her hand gently, a suggestion that Ingrid follows. She finds herself falling into the space next to him, body pressed against his. This is not the first time they’ve laid next to each other. It’s not even the first time they’ve laid in bed together but it is the first time she turns towards him and keeps her hand in his.

Her body feels hot from all the places they touch but Ingrid wills herself not to turn away, instead she curls in tighter, catching the heat that blossoms in her chest.

They stay quiet for a bit, the conversation falling away as she watches Sylvain’s chest rise and fall, trying not to notice the way his pulse beats fast, in time with hers.

“Can I stay here tonight?” she hears herself whispering. It is a question she didn’t intend to ask when she first walked into the room. It is a question she wouldn’t have asked if she had caught it before it left her mouth.

Sylvain turns his head to look at her and she actually has to lean back a little, caught by how close they are to each other now that they’re face-to-face. He’s got a grin on that she recognizes, playful and kind. “Ingrid Brandl Galatea,” he says, mock scolding, “sneaking into a boy’s room at night, what would your father say?”

She rolls her eyes but can’t contain her own smile. “He’d be ecstatic.”

His playful grin turns smug and Ingrid resists the urge to roll her eyes again.

“So?” she nudges, waiting, suddenly feeling very vulnerable, cognizant of the fact that he hadn’t really given her an answer.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, voice dropping to a warm whisper, “you can stay here every night.”

She burrows her face into his shoulder, ducking away from his eyes. She knows she’s probably entirely flushed now, knows that he can’t be oblivious to it. “I don’t know about that,” she mumbles into his shirt.

Sylvain untangles their fingers and she feels bereft for a moment before he tucks her into his chest, curling his arm around her. She can hear his heartbeat pound against his chest, fast and loud and she hides her smile against him.

“Any night then,” he amends quietly.

She hums something akin to an agreement and lets him hold her until morning.

—

Ingrid sneaks out of the room before the monastery wakes. It was a challenging task, untangling herself from Sylvain without waking him, but she had managed somehow. It was almost difficult to leave the warm comfort of his arms but she couldn’t be caught running out of his room in the morning, and besides, she needed a little time alone to herself before the hustle and bustle of academy life caught up to her.

The last few hours had been enlightening on her heart. Ingrid hadn’t thought to feel this way and especially not with someone she has known for so long. She has never been one for romance. Not when it was predetermined for her. And though her feelings for Glenn were strong and genuine, even he had been chosen for her.

Sylvain, she chose herself, albeit, not with the intention of feeling anything more than what she already felt for him. Not with the intention of anything beyond safety and companionship. She had thought that was enough. She had never hoped for more with anyone, not since she was twelve, not since Glenn, and she had been too young then to do anything but hope for more.

She’s not sure if what she feels for Sylvain is the love that they talk about in romance stories. She just knows that what she feels is deep and true. She just knows she doesn’t want to let it go.

And judging by the way Sylvain looks at her, holds her, whispers to her, he probably feels the same.

—

Sylvain pulls her aside after classes break for lunch and takes her to a secluded area of the monastery grounds. Today, the sun shines bright overhead but the biting winter cold keeps the other students darting quickly from building to building, complaining about the temperature.

The two of them don’t mind, used to the much colder climate of home, but use the winter as an excuse to step a bit closer.

“You didn’t say goodbye this morning.” Sylvain pouts, standing in front of her, hands stuffed deep into his pockets.

Ingrid almost laughs, she knows he’s exaggerating on purpose but he looks ridiculous, towering over her and huffing, “you’ve seen me all day.”

“I know but it’s not the same.”

“You were asleep.”

“You could have woken me.”

“Should I have?”

“Yes.”

“Alright, alright,” she surrenders, “next time I’ll wake you up.”

Sylvain beams, looking incredibly satisfied.

“Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?” she asks, an eyebrow raised.

Sylvain shuffles in place and looks down at his feet, “ah-no,” he says, his hands digging further into his pockets. He looks anxious all of a sudden, nervous, and she can’t quite puzzle out why.

Throughout this whole thing, he had been relatively confident. Smooth and charming, and, in some of her most insecure moments, she would wonder, very briefly, how many other girls he had been smooth and charming with before quickly shoving the thought away.

But now, Sylvain shuffles, his face is flushed red, and she’d mistake it for the cold were it not for the way he avoids her gaze.

“Hey,” she starts, voice soft, placing a hand on his arm which stills him. “What’s wrong?”

He snaps his eyes up from the ground and looks at her. He’s still flushed and the expression on his face is still nervous but his words are firm, “Nothing’s wrong,” he tells her. “I just...I wanted to give you something but I’m not sure you’d like it.”

She squeezes his arm, trying to reassure him, and it seems to work because he pulls out a chain from his pocket, a simple silver pendant attached to it.

“I thought since the ring was...” he trails. “Well, anyway, I wanted you to have something from me to-I don’t know symbolize something.”

There’s nothing engraved on the pendant. No crests or emblems or words. Ingrid finds it beautiful.

“Symbolize what?” she whispers.

“A promise,” he says, then he tugs something out from under his collar, an identical pendant on a slightly longer chain. “I know it’s kind of cheesy but-“

“It’s lovely,” she tells him. “Can you help me put it on?”

He steps behind her without another word, his breath on her neck tingling down her spine when he leans in close to clasp it.

When she turns around to look back up at him, his expression is wide-eyed and warm. He has never seemed so open before and Ingrid cannot think to say or do anything else other than to lean up, close her hands around his face and kiss him.

She intends for it to be brief, no more than a peck, something to convey her affection but then Sylvain’s hands fall to her waist so quickly that she hesitates just as he moves his lips against hers and Ingrid finds that she does not want it to be brief.

She wants more. She wants this. She so desperately wants him.

When they pull away, breathing heavily, Sylvain rests his forehead against hers and Ingrid watches as their breaths mingle together and disperse into the winter air.

“I’m never giving this back,” Ingrid says, many moments later, her voice a whisper in the wind.

She feels Sylvain’s smile against her lips. “Who said anything about giving it back?”


End file.
